An 80-page Islamist road map from Abdelmalek Droukdel, head of al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb, shows him castigating troops for conducting public
floggings and destroying mausoleums

An Islamist road map penned by the chief of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and made public on Monday lays bare the organisation's hidden strategy for the hearts and minds of its subjects in Mali and beyond.

In the 80-page document dated July 12, 2012, Abdelmalek Droukdel, the AQIM chief, rages against his own troops for conducting public floggings for fornication and destroying mausoleums as the best way to get locals to "hate the Mujahedeen".

The text, unearthed by journalists working for Libération newspaper and Radio France International, calls for a softer approach that hides longer-term aims of an Islamist state.

Likening the Islamist project to a "newborn in its first days", Droukdel writes: "If we want him to grow up in a world stuffed full of powerful enemies ready to finish him off, we must treat him softly and help him grow."

Better to keep a discreet behind-the-scenes role and let local secular Toureg groups such as the MNLA handle the local population so "we won't be the only ones to shoulder the blame in case of failure," he writes.

Given that strategy, the AQIM boss complains about his zealous followers' heavy-handed approach to miscreants.

"Among your rash policies has been to rush into applying Shariah," he writes.

"Experience has shown that the application of Shariah without calculating the consequences drives away local population and sparks hatred against the Mujahedeen and leads to the failure of any exercise."

The document is remarkably prescient in predicting imminent military intervention in Mali. The text was written after Islamist fighters had extended their control of the vast north of Mali in April 2012, in the wake of a military coup. France – the former colonial power in Mali – then launched a military operation in January this year, after the Islamist militants appeared to be threatening the south. This was followed up by a ground operation to flush out Islamists from their northern strongholds.

"It is very likely, even certain, that (Western forces) will conduct a military intervention," writes Droukdel, predicting this might be accompanied by sanctions.

Given this, he told his troops to "avoid any excess, not to take any risky decisions and not to consider the Islamic project as a stable state as this is still premature."

He remains confident that AQIM can return to Mali in the case of military defeat, however.

"If our project should fail for whatever reason, we could then contend ourselves in the knowledge that we have planted a good seed in the right soil that we have fertilised to help the tree grow tall and strong, even if it takes time," he writes.

The document shows that AQIM has political, rather than purely religious ambitions, as it talks of creating a "state" with a "constitution" and a "people".

Salma Belaala, Sahel Islamism specialist, told Libération: "This document shows for the first time Aqim's desire to govern a territory as a political laboratory.

"The state is for them a conception born from Crusaders, an unthinkable idea until now and borrowed from political modernity.

"From this point of view, this document must be read as a project on a scale never before seen in Jihadi rhetoric and displays a 180 degree semantic and strategic U-turn for AQIM."